Month: April 2017

Within socially constructed reality would it not be the people themselves, with respect to the extent to which they were capable of sharing substance (as per Kenneth Burke’s ‘consubstantiation’)?

If people were capable of sharing Burkeian consubstantiation to a higher degree than their government, such that their government became not only superfluous but a burden upon the people, would their government willingly and expiditiously adjourn?

By what lawful process? If there is no lawful process for dismantling a defunct government, and the government is charged with legislating rights, it is soely the power of the government to determine the limit of human rights.

If it is ultimately the power of government to establish a limit on human rights, and there is no lawful basis for dissolving a superfluous government, what cause is there for a government to refrain from eroding human rights?

Since it is not the function of government to produce wealth, but to regulate commerce, and it is commerce which sustains government, is it not in fact those who control commerce which ultimately determine the limits of human rights?

In as much as profit is a motive of commerce, i.e., personal gain as opposed to shared substance, and governments are sustained by the structure of commerce, than it is those pulling the levers of commerce which ultimately determine human rights, both implied and explicit.

“Common Sense” has come a long way since the time of Thomas Paine. Due to demassification and technology there are a multiplicity of special interests and specialized knowledges which are not easily disseminated nor understood by the masses of today.

Common sense-making (coloquialism) as a defualt methodology, has become a necessary but archaic mode of communicating; we know which side of the road to drive upon, or how to properly greet one another in the street or in formal situations, yet fewer of us understand how to construct an automobile from scratch, or the nature of language and it’s function in the co-constructing of social reality.

Ever fewer of us are experts within every highly specialized field of science and technology. Therefore those within a given specialized field of knowledge could be said to possess an “uncommon sense,” or knowledge with respect to their particular special interest.

This leaves a great majority of people utterly dependent upon the “uncommon” knowledge of others – in so far as the masses are dependent in one way or another upon said technologies – and susceptible to the will thereof in the construction of social reality.

As Marshall McLuhan sugessted – “first we build the tools, then the tools build us.”

In as much as knowledge is a function of power, i.e., a function of social hierarchy such that the more privileged generally receive better educations, the demarcation between Common, vs Uncommon, sense tends to occur along the lines of knowledge vs ignorance.

However ego factors in as well. Ego is so primal to the human (symbol using and abusing animal) condition that no matter what mode of sense-making one is born into, it necessarily becomes implicated within the individual’s value-based system of sense-making.

For better or worse – in a technologically driven world – knowledge (as a tool), will ultimately determine the values and meanings of it’s minions. Knowledge then is the only reasonable approach to sense-making.

The most fundamental step towards gaining knowledge is openness, i.e., the questioning of everything; who? what? why? how? when? etc. One who is not open to new knowledge must either assume that they are already in possession of sufficient knowledge, or are resistant to knowledge in defense of the ego.

A common sense perspective provides a safe and simple sense of belonging and meaning for the ego thereby promoting a general sense of apathy and even resistance to the pursuit of knowledge.

An uncommon sense perspective does not assume or presume, is risky, but is neccessary in the acquisition of a quality existance (an existence in which the common sense maker later becomes acclimated).

A common sense orientation is so ensconced within a myopic worldview that it is unable to comprehend let alone engage an uncommon perspective.